The former player presents ‘El Pensamiento Blanco’, a book with which he wants to change the racialization of society
BARCELONA, 25 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Former FC Barcelona player Lilian Thuram presented this Wednesday together with the general director of the Fundació FC Barcelona, Marta Segú, the ‘Sport and Education Award’ against Racism, designed for university students who can contribute new ideas to the fight against racism and endowed with a total of 10,000 euros.
This award, aimed at university students, has been created jointly by the Thuram Foundation and the FC Barcelona Foundation, two entities that have been collaborating for years in order to achieve a more tolerant and inclusive society through sport.
Thuram, in an act that took place at the Camp Nou Auditorium 1899, highlighted the strength of football and sport in giving voice to struggles for social rights such as racial discrimination. “In Barcelona I was able to see why Barça is more than a club, because of the sensitivity and commitment that the club has for these issues”, he assessed.
Regarding the ‘Sport and Education Award’, he explained that working with universities is “essential” to help people change their way of thinking and reach as many people as possible. “In general, it is very frowned upon for someone to denounce racial discrimination. That is why initiatives like these are necessary,” she said.
For her part, Marta Segú explained that many of the Fundació’s programs around the world experience situations of racial discrimination and intolerance, and highlighted the collaboration between the Fundació FC Barcelona and the Thuram Foundation for years to combat these situations.
The Prize aims to be a platform “for the university world to present innovative ideas, methodologies and practical work that serve to fight and end the stigma of racism”.
The objective of the award is to contribute to sport and education as tools against racism and inclusion from the university and social spheres of Catalonia. Specifically, this initiative wants to promote the participation and leadership of people who study at Catalan universities, future professionals and leaders in sports and education against racism and for a more egalitarian and inclusive society.
The prizes will be awarded to students who complete their Final Degree Project (TFG) on the subject of education and/or sport as a tool against racism. The endowment will be 5,000 euros for the first prize, 3,000 euros for the second and 2,000 euros for the third. A total of 10,000 euros endowment.
THURAM PRESENTS ‘WHITE THOUGHT’
Lilian Thuram also presented her book ‘El Pensamiento Blanco’ edited by Planeta, in which she addresses the history of dominant thought, white thought, its origin and functioning, how it is anchored in society and how only its questioning will allow progress to be made. change the society in which we live.
“For a long time I analyzed racism from the perspective of a child. I ‘turned black’ at age 9, when upon arriving in Paris (from the Antilles) they insulted me for being black and I thought: ‘I’m not black, I’m Lilian’. My mother told me that people were racist and that I was not going to change. It was an endemic evil,” Thuram lamented.
Analyzing the past, he thought that it was necessary to change the mentality. “Think at what age those children became white, or superior. What does it mean to be white? Where does it come from? It comes from the racialization of the world, an idea that goes back centuries, and that places the white race as the White people have rarely experienced what it’s like to be white,” he argued.
In the book, the one who was one of the best central defenders in the history of French football makes a parallel between sexism and racism. “Men are educated like men, and women like women. And this starts at school. Like when a boy tells a girl that they can’t play soccer. My idea in the book is to question that thought, also in the racism. And even today it is difficult to talk about racism or sexism,” he acknowledged.
“If we want to fight racism, we have to understand history and understand that we are part of a way of thinking. Each one of us, culturally, is bound to think in a certain way. It is very important that people understand that they are You need to understand the history of racism to understand that everyone has prejudices. It is not necessary to think that a racist is someone very dangerous, no. We all have to change and have the courage to change racist thinking, “he asked.
He gave an example of how to fight racism. “When I arrived in Barcelona I saw the statue of Columbus. Since I was a child, they taught me that Columbus discovered America and it always interested me. But wherever I go and ask children about him, they tell me that he is the discoverer of America. And they tell them I tell those children that the children who were there on the beach when Columbus arrived would not think that he discovered them. They were already there and existed. Colonization is an economic system and a discourse is constructed to legitimize its existence and its violence”, explained.
He also valued how much he learned from FC Barcelona, and verified that it is really as its motto says: ‘More than a club’. “Then there is the ‘more than a club’, something that marked me and I verified from within that this is really the case. Sport is more than sport itself, there is potential and above all in football. President Laporta, in his moment, he supported me to found my foundation”, he related.
“There is less racism in football than in society. In the locker room, each one has their prejudices according to their education, but they evolve because you live with people and get to know them, and the initial prejudices fall. In the locker room you see that there are other prejudices that endure, and it’s interesting,” he added.